A Release Day Walk Down Memory Lane

It’s finally here! Today is the official release day for The Detective’s Brother and I wanted to celebrate by telling you about how it came to be. Some of you may have already heard all about it, in which case you can head over to my Facebook page and enter to win an autographed copy by checking out the pinned post.

To give you an idea of how important today is to me, you have to go all the way back to 2011 (previously I might have said 2009, but I went back to the original files and checked the date. It just feels like that long). I wrote it in about two months and adored my characters. I did my research, went through a couple of different settings, and was extremely cruel to Simon Creed. I edited it and sent it to beta readers, who enjoyed it a great deal, then in about 2012 I started querying agents. After a couple of false starts, I decided to try small presses.

By 2014 I was certain that my only option was self-publishing. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with self-publishing but I also have a full time day job, which leaves little time for marketing, designing, and learning the ins and outs of publishing, and definitely no time for writing. Then I was scooped up by a little startup in Canada called Sinnful Ebooks. We got a contract signed, a bonus paid, and a cover. Then they shut down abruptly, leaving Simon and Quinn stuck in literary limbo.

I submitted the story to Booktrope on a whim after seeing a couple of author friends talking about them and a few months later they accepted it! I was so happy about it that I had to keep checking my email to make sure it was true. Not gonna lie, there were times I thought that there must have been some mistake. After so many rejections, it was hard to believe that someone really wanted to publish it.

So today I’m looking at my name on a book cover that’s up on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and thinking to myself wow, it’s real. Pretty soon I should have a box of paperback copies and I’ll offer them here for anyone who’d like an autographed copy. I’m nervous and excited, and I hope people read my story and at the very least are entertained for a few hours.

If you’re so inclined, stop by my Facebook party tonight and meet some awesome authors, win some prizes, and just generally make me feel like a princess on my release day! And if you’re not a Facebook person, you can still get your copy of The Detective’s Brother for $0.99 here: